For Immediate Release: April 25, 2003
L.E. "GENE" DURAND TO BE HONORED
L.E. "Gene" Durand of Harrison will receive the Board of Trustees Award from
North Arkansas College during Northark's May 10 Commencement exercises, which
will be held at the Bill Baker Amphitheatre at 10 a.m. Laretta Moore, chairman
of the North Arkansas College Board of Trustees, will present the award.
A pacesetter in the Harrison business community for 57 years, Durand was the first person to establish a charitable remainder trust to benefit North Arkansas College through the North Arkansas College Foundation, Inc.
Durand and his late wife, Betty, moved to Boone County in 1946. He came to Harrison to set up a new plant for Oberman & Co. (eventually, Levi Strauss) to make shorts for the U.S. Navy.
Durand was born in Collinsville, Okla., and grew up in Clovis, New Mexico. Gene has two children: Dr. Douglas Durand of St. Louis, Mo., and Deborah Freund of Gulf Shores, Ala. He also has three grandchildren: Jason Jordan and Jennifer Jordan, who both live in the Gulf Shores area, and Chris Durand of Austin, Tex.
Durand was one of the founders of Community First Bank in Harrison and has served on that bank's board of directors since it was established in 1997.
A member of the Board of Directors of Security Bank in Harrison for 39 years, Durand was that bank's president from 1968 to 1973. He served as board chairman until 1993. Also, he was president of the Arkansas Acceptance Corporation and Acceptance Investment Company and served as a member of the board of directors of the American Industrial Bankers Association.
For almost six decades, Durand has been involved in some of the most important civic projects in Harrison's history. He is a past president of the Harrison Noon Lion's Club, the NoArk Girl Scout Council, Harrison Consolidated Youth Association, and the Harrison Planning Commission. He was the first president of the Hillcrest Home Board, serving 25 years in that capacity and 37 years on the board. He was instrumental in establishing Hillcrest's operating agreement with the Mission Interest Committee of the Mennonite Churches of America.
Since 1946 Gene has been a devoted member of the First Presbyterian Church, elected and ordained as an elder, deacon, and trustee, and serving the church with his administrative skills through various building and renovation projects. He also served the church at the national level for nine years as a member of the Presbyterian Board of Pensions, an organization with over $5 billion in assets providing ministers with medical and retirement benefits.
A past member and president of the Harrison School Board, Durand has had a long-standing interest in advancing the educational opportunities of the community. He served on the Harrison Scholarship Association and was on the Governor's Advisory Board on Public Education from 1969-1972. Also, he served on the original committee organized in Boone County to establish North Arkansas Community College (now North Arkansas College).
"I've had an interest in education all of my life," says Durand. "I served on the planning committee for the college and have always wanted to support it in any way I could. Betty and I agreed that education is the answer to many of the social and family problems society is experiencing today."
In this spirit, Gene and Betty Durand established a significant gift in the form of a trust in 1995 to benefit the North Arkansas College Foundation and other organizations. Given their long association with Northark, it was natural to support the college in this way.
"We wanted to help perpetuate and maintain the values associated with living in Harrison," Durand says. "It's just human nature to want to support the community you call home."
For L.E. "Gene" Durand, it has been a life's work.